Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The
first post in this series described an ancient Babylonian myth and pointed out
that, although we may have shed its polytheistic trappings, it reflects false
beliefs about work that are still common today. Now I’d like to talk about the
first (and arguably the most common) myth I listed.

The
Babylonian creation myth says, in essence, that the gods created humans because
they didn’t want to work and deserved better than to be forced to do so. That
means work is a bad thing. Similarly, many people today view work as a
necessary evil. We complain about our jobs and look forward to vacations and,
ultimately, retirement. We think of “living the good life” as lying around on a
beach somewhere far from the demands of the workplace. When people win the
lottery, often the first thing they do is quit their jobs. And some Christians
take comfort in the idea that in heaven, we won’t need to work.

But is
that what the Bible teaches? Although it doesn’t directly say whether people
will work in heaven, the Bible does tell us a lot about the nature of work. And
it begins right where the Babylonians did – at the very beginning.

The
first place where the word “work” appears in the Bible is Genesis 2:2 “And on
the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the
seventh day from all the work that he had done.” So the first person to do work
was God, and the result of His work was a “very good” universe.

Of
course, the verse does say that God rested, indicating that work wasn’t the
only thing that mattered to Him (more on that in the next post). But that
doesn’t mean He gave up working as soon as someone else could do it. Jesus
said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5:17) So
clearly the Bible’s view of resting does not equal retirement.

When
God created people, He did expect us to work. “And God blessed them. And God
said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and
over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28) God’s
statement is a blessing, but it’s also a job description. Any parent can tell
you that “being fruitful and multiplying” is one of the hardest jobs anyone can
be given. Filling, subduing and ruling the earth means developing its
resources. That includes farming, building cities and other economic activity.
So God began His relationship with people by telling them to work.

But
unlike the Babylonian gods, the God of the Bible didn’t make people work
because He didn’t want to. We work because we are created “in the image of
God.” That means we are like God and do the things He does. Being made in God’s
image separates us from the rest of creation and gives us unique dignity. So
work is a sign of nobility, not of inferiority. We work because God works, not
so that He doesn’t have to work. Perhaps this is why God’s first assignment of
work is described as a blessing.

But
work doesn’t always feel like a blessing. Even though I love my job, there are
still mornings when I’d rather pull my quilt over my head and sleep than get up
and face a day of work. There are afternoons when I feel like if I look at one
more page of text, my brain will turn to liquid and start dripping out of my
ears. And that’s with a good job.

The
Bible explains this, too. When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground,
saying it would yield “thorns and thistles” and that Adam would produce food
from it “by the sweat of [his] face” (Genesis 3:18-19). This is the point where
work, which is good, becomes toil, which is bad. The pain associated with toil
is real and impossible to ignore. But the rest of the Bible tells about God
making all things new, restoring that sin poisoned, including work.

In
conclusion, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Your job isn’t bad; it
was created by God and can be used to glorify Him. When we see our work as an
act of worship and a way to better the world around us, we restore the goodness
it was created to have and join God in rolling back the effects of the Fall.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

This morning, I played my flute in chapel. Although Taiwan's temperature mostly stays above 10 degrees C/50 degrees F, we don't have indoor heating. That meant the instruments needed quite a bit of tuning. As I breathed warm air down my flute to warm it up, this poem came to me.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

I
began this series back in 2012 but never finished it. This is a reboot, so I’m
revising the posts I wrote earlier and (I hope) finishing the series.

According to ancient Babylonian legend, the world began with a
god and a goddess who gave birth to several other gods. The younger gods became
disruptive, so their parents decided to destroy them. Naturally, the younger
deities didn't want to be destroyed, and a cosmic battle began. Eventually
Marduk, one of the younger gods and the chief god of Babylon, won the battle
and was installed as king of the gods. This primeval conflict brought the
forces of chaos under control, allowing Marduk and the other gods to form
everything in existence.

Marduk and his fellow deities wanted to sit back and relax,
enjoying their triumph. However, there was still work to be done. After all,
immortals have to eat too. Marduk considered making the losers of the war do
the work as punishment, but it didn’t seem fitting for divine beings to do such
menial tasks. So the gods created human beings to do this work and free up all
the gods, winners and losers alike, to relax and enjoy their unending lives.

“That’s nice,” you’re probably saying, “but why should I care
what the ancient Babylonians thought? I don’t know anyone who still believes in
Marduk.” No, I’m sure you don’t, but myths both reflect and shape a culture’s
underlying assumptions about what (and who) is valuable. And I many of the
assumptions expressed in this myth are surprisingly prevalent today. The
Babylonian creation myth could have led people to conclude that …

1. Work is bad. After all, it was
beneath the dignity of gods, even the gods who lost the war, to work. People
were created as the gods’ slaves to do unpleasant things.

2. Work is the purpose of life.
According to the Babylonians, we were created to work, which makes work our
purpose.

3. Inferior people do inferior work. This
story doesn’t make distinctions between classes of people, but if the gods pass
unpleasant tasks on to inferior beings, there’s no reason for humans not to do
the same.

4. Work defines our relationship to the gods. Since
the Babylonian gods see people primarily as workers, it would be logical for
humans’ relationship with them to depend on how well people fulfill their
function.

Do any of these attitudes look familiar? They should, because
even though the story I drew them from has passed into obscurity, these ideas
are alive and well.

Like the Babylonian myth, the creation account in the Bible says
that God created the world, then created human beings and gave them work to do.
This led some scholars, like the college professor who first taught me the
Babylonian story, to compare the two. But behind any superficial similarities
stand two completely opposed worldviews. The Bible presents work as something
that is good but that does not determine a human being’s value or relationship
with God. In future posts, I hope to look at each of the myths I listed in
detail and contrast them with the Bible’s view of work.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

I began
the year 2014 with an adventure. Invited by my friend Zoe, I traveled to
Keelung, a city on the northern coast of Taiwan. There Zoe, two other friends
and I saw the harbor and a night market, enjoyed a meal of hot pot (meat, vegetables
and noodles that you cook at your table in boiling broth) and watched
fireworks. This was fun, but the excitement really began during the next leg of
our trip, a journey to Fulong Beach on Taiwan’s northeast coast to watch the
first sunrise of the new year.

The
trip to Fulong itself was an adventure. Twice we were asked to wait for later
trains because the earlier ones were too crowded. The train we did get on was
hot and packed full of people. After a 50-minute train ride we got off, and the
station was so full of people that it took us about 40 minutes to get out. And
all this happened at the time of night when I was feeling most tired.

But
finally we arrived at Fulong. Zoe and I rented bikes at the train station to
travel to the place where we would watch the sunrise, while our third friend,
Belinda, decided to take a shuttle bus and meet us at our destination. (The
other friend had gone back to Taipei to rest.) All my frustration and tiredness
melt away as I glided out of the station and down the slope toward the
seashore. Taipei has too much light, pollution and cloud cover for stars to be
visible there on most nights. But Fulong is far smaller, and it was a clear
night, so I was delighted to see stars scattered above us.

Street
lights and windows on some nearby buildings provided some illumination, but the
path was quite dark. At several points, I couldn’t see the road itself, so I had
to steer by looking at a wall that ran beside the bike path or by Zoe’s head as
she rode in front of me. At one point it became so dark that we rode by the
light of Zoe’s smartphone flashlight.

Even
when the path ran next to the highway and our road was illuminated, the ocean
lay in a field of blackness to our left. The utter lack of even a distant lamp
or a faint star made the water appear as a shadow within a shadow. I found
myself thinking of Genesis 1:2. “The earth was without form and void, and
darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over
the face of the waters.” I took comfort in the knowledge that God’s spirit is
still hovering over Taiwan and all the earth, ready to bring light and hope out
of the darkness that blankets our world.

After
what I think was about 40 minutes of riding, we reached the spot where the
shuttle busses dropped people off to walk up a mountain where they would watch
the sunrise. But police officers blocked our way and told us we couldn’t bring
our bikes up. We didn’t want to leave the bikes because the rental shop hadn’t
given us locks. Belinda had already started up the mountain and was left
without a cellphone signal. Zoe sent her a text message, hoping it would get
through, and we continued on to look for another place to watch the sunrise.

Then we
saw another, smaller path up to the top of the mountain. This path had fewer
people, so we walked our bikes up the hill. This worked well for about five minutes,
but then the slope changed into stairs.

Zoe and
I walked on the concrete stairs, rolling our bikes up the muddy slope beside
us. There were a few points where we had to lift our bikes over obstacles or
move them to the other side of the stairs. People coming down from the top kept
telling us that there were too many people and we couldn’t bring our bikes all
the way up, but we were determined to try. When the path finally got to steep,
we hid the bikes in the bushes by the trail.

We were
hot and tired when we reached a plateau overlooking the ocean. Hundreds of
people were gathered there to watch the sunrise. Singers were performing on a
stage, and several representatives from the local government spoke. By the time
we arrived, it was around 5:45, and the sun was expected to appear at 6:37. So
we stood listening to the music and watching the sky grow lighter.

Soon
pink and purple clouds appeared in the eastern sky. They then faded as the
light grew and the whole sky turned silvery gray. The crowd waited eagerly as
the set time came and went. The sun was still not visible because the horizon
was covered with clouds.

Finally
at around 6:45 the sun rose above the clouds, and the crowds cheered. We had
reached the goal of our adventure. Zoe and I found Belinda and enjoyed the view
of the sun rising over the ocean. The road back was incredibly beautiful, once
it was light enough that I could see it. When I returned to the Fulong train
station, I was tired but happy.

When I
watch the news, I often become discouraged at the amount of violence, suffering
and evil in the world. The Earth is a dark place, and sometimes it seems like
it’s just getting darker. But just like the crowds waiting for the first dawn
of 2014, we know that light will come into the world. God has promised to bring
a new day free of darkness, confusion, war and pain. We may not know when it
will come, but we can be as certain that God will fulfill His word as we are
that the sun will rise each day. He is present in our darkness and will move
decisively to bring an end to it once and for all.

None of
us know what 2014 will bring. It may be a year full of toil and struggle, or it
may be full of sunlight and beautiful views. But we can take courage, because
we know how our adventure will end: with the defeat of the darkness and the
dawn of a new, perfect day.

About Me

I'm a Ph.D student at the University of Notre Dame studying Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity. I also have a BA from Brandeis University and an MTS from Notre Dame. After college, I lived in Taiwan and edited an English-teaching magazine. I love traveling and learning languages. I'm also fascinated with philosophy, which was one of my majors in college, and I write poetry, some of which I post on this blog. Most importantly, I am a sincere Christian. I believe that Jesus is God and trust Him to forgive my sins and enable me to live the life I was made to live.